9781785045127

‘Releases our capacity to be fully alive in relationships’ Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score ‘The principles and methods shared in this book have offered me direct access to ‘courageous love’ and a greater connection to my husband than I ever felt possible’ Gabby Bernstein, #1 New York Times bestselling author The groundbreaking approach to practising courageous love and resilient intimacy using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of therapy.

Most loving relationships fail, not because of communication or empathy breakdown, but because we unknowingly burden our partners with the task of caring for disowned and unloved parts of ourselves. IFS provides the incredible tools for you to foster a healthy dialogue with your own internal parts and those of your partner. Reconnect with the wise and compassionate ‘Self’ at the core of who you are and discover trust and connection with the one you love.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

UK £14.99

I S B N 978-1-78504-512-7

90000

penguin.co.uk

9

781785 045127

Richard C. Schwartz

Richard C. Schwartz is the creator of the revolutionary Internal Family Systems model of therapy. He is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.

Visit ifs-institute.com.

You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For

‘A must-read for anyone seeking a companion on the path toward self-compassion and love’ Esther Perel

Richard C. Schwartz

You Are the One

You’ve Been Waiting For ‘My relationship bible’ Gabby Bernstein

‘A must read’ Esther Perel

A New Approach to Intimate Relationships

RAN5_NP_01YouAreTheOnePB_OUT_87530.pgs 04.10.2023 17:03

RAN5

Praise for You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For “This profound and readable book provides clear guidelines for therapists and clients alike. In ways that complement my own work, clients learn how to unload the cultural and family burdens that block intimacy by keeping them locked in rigid gender roles. Therapists learn an empowering and practical process for treating couples. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone serious about improving relationships in the world today!”

TERRENCE REAL

author of I Don’t Want to Talk About It, How Can I Get Through to You?, and The New Rules of Marriage

“This highly original book offers critical new insights into obstacles to the dance of intimacy. Most of us have inner exiled parts that carry burdens of shame and abandonment from our past. These interfere with our capacity for intimacy. Dick Schwartz shows us how to use the exiles our partners trigger in us to find and heal the ​­source—​­our original attachment injuries. This releases our capacity to be fully alive in relationships.”

BESSEL A. VAN DER KOLK, MD

medical director, the Trauma Center, and professor of psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine

“You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For is my relationship bible! The IFS principles and methods shared in this book have offered me direct access to ‘courageous love’ and a greater connection to my husband than I ever thought possible. The book is on my bedside table, and I turn to it as a nightly ritual.”

GABBY BERNSTEIN

#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Universe Has Your Back

“Dr. Richard Schwartz’s work on Internal Family Systems, along with his latest book, You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For, has profoundly changed my life. One of life’s most important endeavors is to learn how to have compassion for oneself, and his work has been instrumental in my own journey to do so. His unique approach has allowed me to grow with love and gentleness in all aspects of my being—​­ ​­ cognitively, physically, and emotionally. I deeply believe his work will change the world.

Dr. Schwartz’s book is the number one tool I recommend for people who are seeking to find greater compassion and love for themselves and others, especially with regard to better understanding their role within the greater whole and world.”

KRISTA WILLIAMS

cohost and founder of the top-​­ ​­ rated Almost 30 and Morning Microdose podcasts and founder of Making Tarot Modern

“You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For convincingly reveals a profound truth: if we want to have deeply loving, authentic, meaningful intimate relationships we must begin with the one person we know we can ​­influence—​­ourselves. Thoroughly researched yet totally accessible, Dr. Richard Schwartz’s book is written in a compelling manner that had me hooked and gave me hope and tools for how I can enjoy more peaceful, courageously loving relationships.”

TARA SCHUSTER

author of Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies and the forthcoming Glow in the F*cking Dark

“In his new book, Richard Schwartz shares key insights for people who struggle to hold on to their sense of self in the context of relationships. You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For is a must-​­ ​­ read for anyone seeking a companion on the path toward ​­self-​­compassion and love.”

ESTHER PEREL

psychotherapist, author, and host of the Where Should We Begin? podcast

“Emerging research suggests that the Internal Family Systems model, developed by Dick Schwartz and outlined in this book, cultivates ​­self-​­acceptance, enhances inner compassion, and improves emotion regulation skills. This book applies the IFS model to one of the most complex human challenges and opportunities for healing, which is navigating intimate relationships. Our modern culture leaves us adrift in a sea of misunderstandings about how to achieve and sustain intimacy, and this book guides the reader to realize that the healing journey must first start with oneself.”

ZEV ​­SCHUMAN-​­OLIVIER, MD

assistant professor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and director, Center for Mindfulness and Compassion, Cambridge Health Alliance

You Are the One

You’ ve Been Waiting For

ALSO BY RICHARD C. SCHWARTZ No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model Introduction to Internal Family Systems: A Revolutionary Therapy for Wholeness & Healing

Richard C. Schwartz

You Are the One

You’ ve Been Waiting For A New Approach to Intimate Relationships with the Internal Family Systems Model

1 Vermilion, an imprint of Ebury Publishing 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA Vermilion is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © Richard C. Schwartz 2023 Richard C. Schwartz has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published in the United States by Sounds True in 2023 First published in Great Britain by Vermilion in 2023 www.penguin.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 9781785045127 Typeset in 10.8/16pt Adobe Garamond Pro by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. The authorised representative in the EEA is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68 Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.

Lovingly dedicated to my parents, the late Gen and Ted Schwartz, my biggest mentors and ​­tor-​­mentors

INTERNAL FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY

I

nternal Family Systems TherapySM is one of the fastest-​­ ​­ growing approaches to psychotherapy. It has developed over the past forty years into a way of understanding and treating human problems that is empowering, effective, and nonpathologizing. Internal Family SystemsSM involves helping people heal by listening inside themselves in a new way to different “parts”—​­feelings or ​­thoughts—​­and, in the process, unburdening themselves of extreme beliefs, emotions, sensations, and urges that constrain their lives. As they unburden, people have more access to Self, our most precious human resource, and are better able to lead their lives from that centered, confident, compassionate place.

ix

CONTENTS Introduction The Three Projects Romantic Rescue: Debbie’s Story Becoming the Primary Caretaker of Your Parts The Self ​­Self-​­to-​­Self Interaction Speaking for Parts Chapter One: Cultural Constraints to Intimacy Isolation Cultural Pressure for the Romantic Rescue Staying Out of the Dark Sea The Empty Self Another Kind of Happiness The Cruel Joke Gender Socialization Multiplicity Versus the Myth of the Monolithic Personality

1 4 6 7 9 10 10 13 13 14 16 18 21 22 23 31

Chapter Two: The Development and Power of Exiles 39 The Magical Kitchen Metaphor 39 ​­Well-​­Fed Parts 42 How Exiles Develop 44 Three Ways Parts Are Exiled 46 We Bury Our Joy 50 The Power of Exiles 51 Finding and Healing Exiles 55 Extreme Beliefs about Relationships 56 Attachment Theory and Exiles 67 Trailheads and ​­Tor-​­mentors 74 Summary 75 Solution 76

xi

Chapter Three: Courageous Love and Doomed Relationships The ​­Neo-​­exiles: Parts Exiled by the Relationship The ​­Neo-​­exiling Power of Abandonment Anxiety Courageous Love Doomed Relationships The Pros, the Antis, and the Unaffected Noticing Protectors Summary Chapter Four: An Example of Growing Toward ​­Self-​­Leadership The Kevin Brady Story The Effects of Trauma Kevin’s Protectors Cracked Fortress Protector Fears Going Inside The Suicidal Part Helping Exiles Heal Helen’s Work The Couples Sessions Being the “I” in the Storm Speaking For Rather Than From ​­Self-​­Leadership as a Way of Interacting Reparations Remaining the “I” in the Storm When You Are Your Own Primary Caretaker Anticipating Trouble Partner as ​­Tor-​­mentor Virtuous Cycles Chapter Five: Getting Practical: How to Bring in Courageous Love Following the Relationship Trailhead When a Part Feels Exiled by the Relationship When a Part Is Protecting Hurt or Exiled Parts

xii

Contents

79 79 82 86 94 99 101 103

107 107 108 110 111 112 114 115 117 122 123 125 126 128 132 133 134 136 137 140

145 146 147 150

When a Part Is Polarized with Another Part Revealing Your Parts ​­Self-​­to-​­Self Discussions

151 152 154

Chapter Six: The Whole Picture Conflict Intimacy Good Luck

169 169 174 179

RESOURCES

181

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

183

NOTES

185

BIBLIOGRAPHY

189

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

191

Contents

xiii

Introduction

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you have ignored for another . . .

DEREK WALCOTT, COLLECTED POEMS, ​­1948–​­1984

I

t’s my first session with Kurt and Marissa. Marissa breaks the early tension by stating that they are desperate and I may be their last hope. They have been miserable for four years and have gone 1

through three other marital therapists as well as several weekend retreats for couples. Religiously they practice the communication skills they have been taught and sometimes find them helpful in the moment, but the structure falls apart once either of them touches a sore spot in the other. In therapy they have even found livable compromises to several chronic issues, but their overall dissatisfaction with each other hasn’t really changed.

Kurt concurs, adding that he feels helpless and despairing. He’d had many relationships but waited to marry until he felt totally sure that he’d found the right partner. He says, “We were so in love, have so much in common, and are both intelligent. Why isn’t this working?

I’ve always succeeded in my life. When I find something I want and work hard to get it, I succeed. When I face a problem head-​­ ​­ on, I can solve it. This marriage thing is my one big failure.”

There are many couples like Kurt and Marissa. Earnestly battling the demons that our culture and its relationship experts implicate, such as poor communication and lack of empathy, they feel bloodied and beaten by their inability to make it work. They alternate between blaming each other and themselves for not being able to bring harmony into their homes and satisfaction to one of the most important relationships in their lives.

What if the premise itself is to blame? What if there were no way that Kurt and Marissa could succeed, no matter how perfect their communication or how much they compromised and empathized? Couples are told that if they could just accommodate each other enough, they would be happy. Each partner is asked what they need from the other, and therapy is designed to find ways that each can change to meet the other’s needs. What if there is an essential flaw in this accommodation premise that sets up couples to fail?

I believe that there is. Conditions exist within each partner and in the context of their lives that, if left unchanged, will preclude finding 2

You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For

the intimate, mutually supportive, and respectful connection they crave. This book will describe those conditions and offer a clear path to changing them. It will help couples replace the controlling, dependent, possessive, or distant relating they have come to expect and dread with something I call courageous love.

When each partner has courageous love for the other, many of the chronic struggles most couples face melt away because each partner is released from being primarily responsible for making the other feel good. Instead, each knows how to care for their own vulnerability, so neither has to force the other into a preconceived mold or control the other’s journey.

Courageous love involves accepting all parts of the other because there is no longer a need to keep the other in the confining roles of parent/redeemer/ego booster/protector. The other senses that acceptance and freedom, which feel wonderful and unusual to them. They come to trust that they don’t have to protect themselves from you and can keep their heart open.

Thus this ability to care for yourself emotionally permits the intimacy you seek because you have the courage to allow your partner to come close or get distant without overreacting. With less fear of losing or being hurt by your partner, you can embrace them fully and delight in their love for you.

Is this a far cry from your experience of relationship? Are you thinking, That sounds nice, but where am I going to find someone who is evolved enough to treat me that way? You may not have to look as far as you think. If you and your partner can take what I call a ​­U-​­turn (you-​­turn) in your focus and begin to relate differently inside yourselves, you will each find that courageous love becomes a spontaneous way of life rather than something you must strive to achieve. You will also find that your partner doesn’t have to take care of you because there is so much support you can get from yourself.

Introduction

3

In our second session, I proposed to Kurt and Marissa that they take that U ​­ -​­turn, and they reacted the way most couples do initially. Marissa said, “I’m willing to look at my part in this, but what about the way Kurt digs at my ​­self-​­esteem? It’s a rare day when he doesn’t find something to criticize.” Kurt was equally resistant: “Am I supposed to work on myself, so I just accept Marissa’s lack of interest in sex? Do you expect me to be okay with a sexless marriage?”

What I propose in this book is a hard sell in Western culture. We are primarily oriented toward getting from our partners what we need to feel good and don’t believe we can get much from ourselves. We want to transform the source of pain in the outside world rather than the source within us. That external ​­focus—​­and the therapies of accommodation that subscribe to it—​­ ​­ will only provide temporary relief at best from the inner and outer storms that gradually erode the fertile topsoil of our relationships. There is another way, and we will explore it in this book. Before we do, however, let’s further examine the problems with this accommodation premise.

The Three Projects For reasons that will be discussed at length in the pages to come, your partner cannot succeed in making you feel good in a lasting way. For example, if you have had a hard life filled with rejection and loneliness, their love can only temporarily lift the cloud of worthlessness and ​­self-​­loathing that will return whenever they are away or in another mood. If you enter the relationship expecting them to be that kind of redeemer, inevitably you will be disappointed at some point.

Our Western culture, and many of the relationship experts in it, have issued us faulty maps and improper tools. We’ve been told that the love we need is a buried treasure hidden in the heart of a special 4

You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For

intimate partner. Once we find that partner, the love we crave should flow ​­elixir-​­like, filling our empty spaces and healing our pain.

When that love stops flowing, even momentarily, we get scared and go to work on one of three projects. The first two of these are designed to get our partner back into that loving redeemer role. The third project is to give up on that endeavor and find alternatives.

The first, and most common, project involves directly trying to force our partner to change back. Some of us get out the blunt saws, scalpels, or dynamite in an attempt to break through the crust surrounding their heart. We plead, criticize, demand, negotiate, seduce, withhold, and ​­shame—​­all in an effort to get them to change. Most partners resist our crude attempts to perform ​­open-​­heart surgery on them. They sense the implicit criticism or manipulation behind these change attempts and become defensive.

The second project is to use many of those same crude tools on ourselves. First we strive to figure out what our partner doesn’t like about us and then try to sculpt ourselves into what we think they want, even if that is a far cry from our true nature. We use self-​­ ​­ criticism and shame to cut out parts of our personalities or pounds off our bodies, hoping that if we please them, they will love us. Because this s​­ elf-​­transformation project isn’t authentic, it usually backfires, too.

The final project kicks in once we give up on getting the love we crave from our partner. At that point, we begin to close our heart to them and (1) search for a different partner, (2) numb or distract from the pain and emptiness enough to stay with the original one, or (3) numb and distract enough to live alone.

All of these are exiling projects. In the first, we try to get our partner to exile the parts of them that threaten us. In the second, we work to exile the parts of us that we think they don’t like. In the third, we exile the parts of us that are attached to them. As I will discuss later, whenever a relationship creates exiles, it will pay a price.

Introduction

5

Although couples enter therapy complaining of all kinds of issues, usually it isn’t hard to discern some combination of these three projects behind their dysfunctional patterns of interaction. This is because most of us carry inner vaults full of pain, shame, and emptiness; and most of us don’t know how to deal with these emotions other than to numb or distract from them until we finally get the love of that special other person.

Romantic Rescue: Debbie’s Story ​­ Best ​­selling author Debbie Ford describes her own struggle with her inner worthlessness in this way. “By the time I was five years old, I was all too familiar with the voice in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t wanted, and that I didn’t belong. Deep inside I believed there was something wrong with me, and I went to great lengths to conceal my flaws.”1 This statement could have been made by any number of my clients or by me. Each of us then must find ways to manage all that inner angst until we find the person whose love, we have been taught, will make it disappear.

When Debbie was a child, her angst-​­ ​­ managing strategy was to use charm and good grades to keep a steady stream of approval flowing into her to drown out the negative voice, until that no longer worked.

“When I couldn’t find someone to validate me or tell me I was okay, I would sneak across the street to the nearby ​­7-​­Eleven and buy a package of Sara Lee brownies and a bottle of ​­Coca-​­Cola. That dose of sugar really seemed to do the trick.” When she was twelve, however, Debbie’s parents decided to divorce, and the pain and shame of that sudden event ignited all the burning emotions she had been containing and added to her ​­deep-​­seated fear that she was flawed, damaged, and had been dealt a bad lot in life.2 A version of that plaintive question, “Won’t that special someone come and love me?” dwells in most of us and drives our treasure hunts 6

You Are the One You’ve Been Waiting For